


tick, tock

by wordonawing



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, empath!courfeyrac, grantaire has earth powers, i don't understand it either don't worry, telekinetic!enjolras, telepath!combeferre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:45:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordonawing/pseuds/wordonawing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just his luck that the one mission they don’t go together on is the one when Enjolras wanders off and accidentally touches a body infested with an alien virus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tick, tock

13.

Grantaire is locking the handcuffs shut around the wrists of a guy who tried to steal a lady’s bag when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

“Sorry to rush off like this,” he says as he hands the guy to Javert, “but my boyfriend’s calling.”

Or, as it turns out, his best friend.

12.

“It was supposed to be a routine job,” Courfeyrac says, once they’ve all sat down on the worn old sofa in Enjolras and Grantaire’s apartment. “Go in, shut it down, pose for pictures, job done. But he had to go and play the hero, didn’t he?”

Grantaire looks at Combeferre, who sighs and sets his mug of tea down on the coffee table. “He seemed fine when he came out. I should’ve checked.”

Grantaire says it isn’t his fault, because he knows Combeferre will take the blame upon himself even if he can read the opposite in their minds. And it isn’t his fault anyway. It’s Grantaire’s.

Just his luck that the one mission they don’t go together on is the one when Enjolras wanders off and accidentally touches a body infested with an alien virus.

11.

It’s strange seeing Enjolras immobile. His brain rarely shuts off; even in sleep he tosses and turns and nearly kicks Grantaire off the bed most nights. Grantaire thinks about the times he’s wished that Enjolras could slow down for a few minutes, to set down the weight of the world and let himself relax. Stranger still is the fact that he can’t hear him at the back of his head any more.

10.

They try everything they can think of. Joly sits by Enjolras’s bed and takes his hand, brow creased in concentration, but the rivers of light that flow down his arms break apart when they touch Enjolras’s skin, as if repelled by some invisible force field. Haemotologists and dermatologists and neuroscientists and pathologists file in one by one, all saying almost exactly the same thing: _It’s not looking promising_ , which is doctor speak for _He’s going to die_. Grantaire stays by Enjolras’s side until Combeferre makes him eat.

He’s pretty sure they don’t mean him to see it, but one of the advantages of being privy to the inside of Enjolras’s head is that sometimes things bleed through from his best friends’.

9.

Combeferre tries first, and then Courfeyrac, and then both of them together. The outcome is nearly always the same: their eyes snap open after barely a minute. Once Courfeyrac stayed asleep so long Combeferre had to use the defibrillator to bring him back up.

The days wear on.

8.

One doctor tries to put a line in Enjolras’s wrist. It takes them nearly an hour to get her down from the wall.

7.

Enjolras’s arm is banded with thick green veins almost to the shoulder before Courfeyrac suggests Grantaire going in. Combeferre breaks a plate and goes into the spare room with Courfeyrac. Grantaire can only make out a few words: _dangerous, killed, not worth the risk_. None of them are spoken.

It’s dark by the time they come back. Grantaire has to say yes fourteen times before Combeferre gives in.

6.

Combeferre explains the structure with a diagram on a whiteboard and a laser pointer while Courfeyrac sits on the sofa and gnaws at his nails, red-rimmed eyes darting every so often to the door to Enjolras's room, accompanied by a spike in anxiety that Grantaire feels in his bones.

Enjolras's mind is as complex as the man himself: constantly changing, shifting, adapting. A labyrinth where all the walls move, all the time.

And Grantaire Theseus, but no ball of string to guide the way back.

"Am I going to have my powers?”

The silence that follows his question tells him more than an answer ever could.

5.

“Listen for the countdowns,” says Courfeyrac as he hooks Grantaire up to the IV. “And whatever you do, don’t stray off the path.” Grantaire nods once, and closes his eyes.

4.

The air is wet, and Grantaire has difficulty breathing before he remembers he doesn’t have to. He’s standing on a patch of what looks like solid ground, but it feels off; he can’t sense it the way he can normal earth, can’t feel the cracks and fissures and crevasses in it as it stretches towards the crucible of the planet.

It rumbles under his foot when he takes a step forward.

3.

He doesn’t know how long he walks for. The numbers on his watch flash erratically: _23, 45, 12, 1_. He hopes that he’ll be able to hear the countdowns through the thick green mist above him.

3.

Sometimes he catches sight of things in the distance: tiny green lights floating like fireflies, figures moving in the mist, snatches of song. Once he fancies he sees a monster in the trees, but it’s just a red flag tied to a tree, the wind whistling through its eight holes.

3.

He was sure there used to be a path beneath his feet. But there can’t have been. There’s only ever been grass and rocks and tree roots.

The lights look a bit like eyes, if he squints just right.

3.

Enjolras is even more beautiful than he remembered, all golden hair and pale skin and green eyes that contrast stunningly with the blood running down his chin.

**Author's Note:**

> this was happy once and then bowowza happened  
> if it's any consolation i terrified myself writing it


End file.
